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Ishie

Guest
Messages
1,013
Reaction score
0
Location
Sacramento, CA
# of dives
100 - 199
What a wonderful trip!!!

Major Kudos to Atlantis and particularly to our divemaster Marco. What's better than a marine biologist as a DM???

INCREDIBLE introduction to warm water!! The reefs are gorgeous, and particularly around Apo! The last day of diving, we were off Apo island staying fairly shallow, but it was a clear day with like 90' of vis, sun shining through, and there was not a sandy area; all soft and hard corals, clouds of fish, morays, frogfish... stunning!!!

Did my first real "wrecks". The Dauin cars and a small fishing boat. Not the Andrea Doria, but prior to that it was just smashed driftwood and the shell of an old military amtrack.

Lionfish galore! Tons of eels, gorgeous brightly colored fish, and beautiful nudibranchs. Several giant clams, turtles everywhere, and they let me swim with them!!!

Great seasnake!! I put him in my gallery. I was chasing him for quite a distance, but then he turned around and headed (curiously) straight for my camera. I have one picture (not loaded) of a kind of "reared cobra" look, but it blurred :eek:hyeah20: , so I got the one where he turned around with his head at a 45 degree angle to the camera.

All in all, an awesome trip and an awesome country. I've never met nicer people or felt generally safer in an atmosphere. It was funny because once I was back at SFO, I had a kind of mental change where I was being far more attentive with my bags, while in Dumaguete I had my camera comfortably in the camera room and my wallet casually tossed on the nightstand. I went out in town and had a great time there too.

Thanks for all the advice from everyone. I'm gradually loading images into my gallery, though I have about 2000 to sort through, topside and bottomside. That is quite a drop from the banca boat, but a fun one! We were having fun trying to get pictures of each other doing the big backflop off the boat, with double points for the twin fin slap if you can hit the top AND the side of the boat on the roll in.

Thanks everyone! Can't wait to go back!!
 
post it here post it here

post it here

hehehheheehe

glad you had a great birthday celebration - SCUBA diving in warm water.... is there scuba diving around or near Sacramento?
 
There's some scuba diving near Sacramento, but not really what I'm into. I dived a part of the American River for my advanced class and it was disgusting. I've been to Folsom Lake, but not to dive, and it didn't strike me as being much fun to dive it, so I book it to Monterey, which is about 3.5 hours away. Cold water, often bad vis, but great diving!

I must say though, the warm water was NICE. 84 degrees the whole time!!! Wore a 3/2 suit that I didn't really need, but stingy stuff in the water. I did get a clownfish bite (also in my gallery) and I think a banca prop churned a box jelly because I caught something on my thumb that's left a bunch of blisters, so I stayed in the wetsuit.

Here's some of the pix:











The others are the most recent pix in my gallery.

Thanks!
 
Great to hear you loved it Ishie! Nice pics. Inggit ako! (I'm jealous!)

This is an awesome country with very friendly people and I'm glad you felt safe here. Take care and hope you come back soon!

Will check out your gallery. Very excited.
 
Ishie, nice pics. Glad you enjoyed your intro to warm water diving. Will be heading to your neck of the woods here soon and I will sorely miss the warm waters of Florida and the PI when I get there.
 

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